A man looked back at us as he finished pouring some steaming water into one of the finely crafted vessels. He bowed his head and then scurried off to a door hidden in the shadows by a corner.
I absently reached out with my senses and was surprised when there was an answer, so very dim, so very weak, but it was still there. It was so very old, steeped in history. It felt a little how Father Stone felt to me, some sort of ancient magic.
I smiled, the tubs were spelled, that is why they didn't show any tarnish of age. But the magik was so tired, so... alone as it faded from this world. My raspy and hoarse voice rumbled in awe. “These are not new. They taste as old as the Keeps of the Lower Ten themselves. It is the magik of the People sustaining them, cast long before the passing of the last of the touched of the Cristea.”
I looked up at my wife who was smiling down on me. I blushed as she marveled. “I can get lost in the wonder of the world I see in you, Laney. I forget to open my eyes to even the simple things.”
I exhaled then just let tendrils of magik drift from me to reignite the ancient charms from a bygone era that have maintained this wondrous bathhouse. To my surprise small lights at the borders of the walls sprang to life with the warmth of low burning candles, illuminating the space just enough to keep a sort of reverent intimacy about the space. Those long dead lights rekindling.
Then I bit the tip of my tongue as I tried to fight of the mischievous smile playing on my face. They had filled but one bath... I looked around as I felt my cheeks and neck warm with a blush. I looked up innocently at my wife and inhaled sharply at the wicked gleam in her eyes.
Then she was kissing me almost desperately. I eagerly responded as she kindled the fire inside of me like no other could. She broke the kiss, panting, then keeping me still with her eyes that were burning with a need that had my core heating and me shimmying from foot to foot, she started undressing me, wonder in her eyes that had water welling in my eyes.
Once her task was complete, and her eyes had caressed every inch of my body, which I could almost feel as physical contact as our magic mixed freely, then I reached up and reciprocated, undressing my love. It felt almost as reverent as the Femeie de Sabie preparation ritual, but this was personal, emotional, the sharing of one soul between two people.
Soon, shy Celeste Trapper stood before me in all her glory, her eyes seeking mine, seeking my approval. I heard someone whisper, “So beautiful.” Whether it was her or me was no matter as we took each other's hands and stepped into the sinfully warm waters.
What happened next is not for me to share, but I made sure that my woman knew how much I loved her, and how she could make me feel with just a fleeting glance. That she was the Knight of my heart, always.
And I cried.
Chapter 19 – Diversion
I was yelling out to the people, “Get armed, and into your groupings! We need to evacuate! We need to get to the caves now!”
The village was in a panic, but I had to keep things moving, the tanks would be here soon. Bowyn was calling out, “Make haste, everyone needs to get to the camp halfway to the caves by nightfall! Those who can stand with us to slow the enemy approach move to the left!”
Verna was passing out the makeshift weapons, and I hesitated as I saw almost all of the men and women settling into groups of five and moving to the left, looking frightened but determined. I looked at these farmers, and weavers, and woodworkers who were all ready to stand and fight for their people against an enemy who had defeated them so soundly before. They were scared, but they were assembling into Grevas before my eyes. My pride in those people knew no bounds.
They stood in fives and braved the fire.
The Grevas bold, in times so dire.
I could feel it, it was so close now, my vision. There was no choice I could make that could change my own demise, I knew, but I could make a choice to save the Gypsies littering the field of grain I had witnessed time and time again, but I would not deny anyone their honor.
I called out as someone behind me was checking my gypsy leathers, I think it was Elaine. “We require only five Grevas to stand with us to slow the enemy. The rest of the Grevas need to get to the caves to defend those who cannot defend themselves, it is imperative that the Cristea survive!”
I rasped out in a roar, “You survived Exodus, you survived First Year, and you will survive Avalon God damn it, you are Cristea!”
A roar went up in the crowd, and Sara leaned in to be heard over the crowd. “And here Celeste said you hated speeches. Nice going... did you just swear?”
The shadow of the Outrider darkened the morning sky as our Templar Bexington of Sparo took position over the village. One of the radios recovered from the other two checkpoints crackled on my hip. Bex called out, “Outrider in position.”
I nodded as I unclipped the radio and lifted it, “Roger.” Bex had changed the dials on the radio to the far right, giving us our own invisible communications, though we used it only for status updates as the Avalonians could easily hear if they found we were utilizing their equipment on more than just one of those unseen wires in the air.
I looked up as I remembered seeing the Outrider returning to Aratreya less than two hours after it left. Any confrontation would have barely just begun there. I at first was hopeful that Stein had chosen peace until I realized that the Condor was not accompanying the Outrider. My heart had filled with dread as flashes of light could be seen in the cabin. Bex was flashing a warning. Enemy approaching, northwest. Retreat.
Early that morning after letting my Celeste know how I felt about her... again, we dressed and met in the main hall. People were already prepping and getting some of the villagers on the road to the caves, the evacuation of the approximate thousand remaining people should only take about an hour. But I was basing that upon the once a year evacuation drills in Wexbury, where we had close to eight thousand residents.
We could gather supplies and head to the secondary portcullis to the North and have the keep evacuated except for necessary personnel in a little over two hours. But these people had never had need of drills like that, and it was obvious. At the rate they were going, it would be four or five hours before we could get the last of the people out of the village and on the move to the caves.
I hesitated a moment at my line of thought, eight thousand souls in Wexbury Keep now. When I was but a child, the realm celebrated when we had a birth in the Keep that pushed our number over seven thousand. Now that number has grown almost a thousand since I had become a squire as Wexbury gained more and more notoriety with Bex's inventions and accidental finds like the Penny Library.
The quarters have been getting quite close, and Inn Alley was filled to capacity with visiting nobles all wishing to partake of the bounty of knowledge the library held. There were plans to start enlarging the keep with a secondary lower wall outside the main portcullis.
I glanced around again, these amazing people had taken their family from the brink of extinction... from just two hundred souls to over three thousand in the intervening centuries. The Cristea truly embodied the strength of the People. Who knows where they would be in another thousand years. Possibly populating this entire crater and the Ribbon of Life beyond. I smiled at the thought of twelve new villages all named after the other gypsy families.
For possibly the last time, I wondered if the other three groups of Cristeas had found other lands and yet thrive out there as the Westlands... as New Home had. Then that thought died as I wondered if Avalon had already found them if they yet lived.
I pondered just how long it would have been before Avalon stumbled upon Sparo on their own before this, it seemed they were constantly searching for resources they could exploit. I imagine they already consumed all they had in their own lands.
I hesitated when I realized those dry stream beds that made no sense in the Uninhabitable Lands suddenly weren't a mystery anymore, They were the trails blazed by Avalon in their systematic search for other lands to exploit.
/> They were a parasitic culture, and I silently wished they had found Sparo first, so the other lands didn't have to suffer conquest. Since as Stein was about to discover when he met Celeste in battle, us 'savages' were something they have never come up against before. A people who could wage war.
Bex was ushering a final group of adults to bolster the needs at the camp being set up in the North Caves. He would be able to get one flight in before they had need him to fly west.
I raised a hand to Sylvia, who looked neither happy nor amused to having been attached to that group. As the only healer... correction, only adult healer of the touched here, she was our most valuable asset for when casualties from Celeste's detachment started arriving.
Or worse, when the Cristea would be on their own until the Falcon, whose orders were to monitor the pending battle and to make haste to Sparo with as many refugees as possible if it appeared we would not win the field. Then they were to return loaded down with as many Techno-Knights as she could carry. The Outrider and Condor had the same orders.
My adopted sister just crinkled her nose at me then marched along in a huff toward the airship.
Dru had looked even more displeased look as he sat on a nearby water trough since his two charges would be separating again. As Celeste would be in more immediate danger, he was going to be going with her to the field of battle, leaving me to fend for myself. The man was so dedicated even though he acted so aloof.
As Father Sol's first light crested the Ringed Range, to spill his warmth upon our faces, Celeste squeezed my hands then turned on the radio that was attached to a makeshift capacitor Bex had charged. “Commander Stein?”
For a minute there was nothing, she was about to call out again when the radio hissed and crackled, and the Commander's voice came through, sounding almost smug, “God damn, woman. You had us going. Our scouts are returning, you don't have four squads in Lupei, my men can find no sign of any. They all sit in that oversized balloon, it was just their crew wasn't it?”
I could almost see the amusement on his face for being played the fool, but I smiled slowly, they didn't know of Charlie Squad hiding in the village.
The man sighed on the radio and said like he was speaking to a misbehaving child, “Of course this kind of lawlessness cannot go unpunished. The people of Lupei will pay the price for the willful and barbaric murders of our men at the extraction sites. All of them had been run through by god damned swords, and one was beheaded by something that cauterized his wounds. I tried not to view you as savages, then you do this.”
This was the most dangerous part of the plan, it all hinged upon one man's hubris on his pride and belief we were beneath him. Celeste said in a resigned manner, “Commander, I stand for Sparo and the Cristea, I challenge you to single armed combat on the field of battle to end all of this needless bloodshed. Leader against leader. There was a clearing we saw just a mile west of our prior meeting place, we will be there at ten.”
Then before he could respond, she added, “If you refuse or fail to show, we will march upon your base.”
Then we all waited, I realized that I and many others were leaning in in participation. The man chuckled. “You got a set of balls on you, Celeste, I gotta give you that. We'll be there, but I will not face you hand to hand with those goddamn swords of yours. My men will face your... knights.” He said the word knights with great amusement. Then he added, “We'll see if you have as great a success without using cowardly sneak attacks.”
Then we had seen our troops off, four knights being left behind, Bowyn, Verna, Haun, and a Perth Hollow woman who looked very familiar to me for some reason. I think I may have seen her at the Royal Masquerade. Sara was torn between staying with me or going with Celeste, the part of her that thrived upon the rush of the battle won out, and she went along with them.
I had to smile when I saw in the trees by the airships, Dru lifting Elaine's eyes to his with a finger on her chin, then leaning down to give her the gentlest of kisses. Their lips lingered a moment, and then he strode off, leaving her standing there, her lips parted and her eyes closed. I knew it!
I had exchanged a similar kiss with my Lady, my love, my Celeste. My heart ached as I watched the Outrider head west with her. I had whispered, “I will always love you Celeste Trapper.” The wind carried away my whisper, and I prayed to gods I didn't believe in that Father Stone would hear that whisper and let it roam the Whispering Walls forever after I was gone.
When we saw the Outrider flying back toward us at top speed, Bex flashing the warning. It had chilled my bones. All I could think was that this was it. It was time. I had switched on my radio and Bex was yelling the same warning. “Aratreya come in! It was a diversion! Aratreya come in!”
I responded, “Bex what is it?”
He rushed out, stopping his manic flashing light. “Our knights are fighting a small detachment led by Stein. They have ungodly weapons, the likes of which we haven't seen yet, some even spew dragon's flame across the land in front of them. Celeste sent me airborne to check the area for the rest of them.”
There was an ominous silence before he said, “I took to Outrider's maximum altitude when I couldn't find them until I could see the other side of the mountain. There are four tanks, and the bulk of their men making their way toward Aratreya through the woods on their conveyances around the north side of Domed Mountain.”
Mother Luna! They would cross the paths of the evacuating Cristea before they reached the village. That brought us to this point in time. We had to get out there in front of the defenseless civilians, and we had to do it now.
I looked to the big ebony knight who was helping organize the steady stream of people making haste to the north as my new Greva gathered around me. Verna, Bowyn, and Elaineia at my side, and Bex in the sky. Then I looked to Corrine and Angelus with apology creasing my face as I called out, “Haun, take the other knight...”
I left it hanging, and the woman called out in a slightly put out tone, “Madelyn.”
I felt bad for not knowing, but I wouldn't forget now. “You and Lady Madelyn are tasked to escort Mother Corrine and Angelus to the caves to the exclusion of all else.”
They nodded in understanding as the Mother of the Cristea started arguing. She didn't realize the importance of her surviving this whole, pardon my crude language, this whole clusterfuck. The Cristea needed their Mother to look to for guidance if this all went sideways. If I had my druthers, Elaineia would go with them. Heather was already at the caves, looking after the children with the others chosen to shepherd them.
I held a hand up to stop the incensed woman as she grasped the hardwood handle of an axe. I simply pulled my hunting cloak forward, bunched in my hand, the deep forest green piping of Great Mother Ranelle on display. I really hated pulling rank, even though I still didn't understand fully what the green stripes meant, and I truly hated taking the woman's honor and right to go into battle for her people from her. But it was more important that the symbol the Cristea looked to in times of need was protected.
Corrine huffed out, her eyes burning with a fire that rivaled the Fire of Wexbury, “I will remember this.”
I inclined my head and closed my eyes in understanding. It would be a rift between us, but I accepted that if it meant the Cristea would still have their Mother.
Angelus gave me an apologetic look, and placed calming hands on his wife's shoulders from behind and said, “Laney is right, Cor. The Cristea need their Mother.”
I could see the need for the big man to fight for his people burning just as bright, but it was overshadowed by his understanding of the importance of the Cristea's need for a symbol, for a leader. Heather was just too young, and still too innocent to take on the role should Corrine pass in battle.
Corrine hissed at him, “I know she's right. And I hate that she is.” She gave me a tight-lipped look with a hint of apology in it.
I whistled, and Goliath came trotting over. “Take Goliath, there is no mount faster nor more powerfu
l in any of the realms.”
They looked at my boy, eyes wide at the sheer size of him. I had to steady him as Angelus mounted up and pulled his wife up into the saddle in front of him as our knights mounted their chargers. Goliath huffed and sidestepped nervously. I placed my forehead on his muzzle and soothed him. He didn't like any but my family riding him. “It's ok boy. This is important. I'm counting on you.”
He huffed again, almost as if he understood and I released the reins. I told Angelus, “Light on the reins, he's an intuitive ride. Just give him your intent, and he'll do the rest. Don't fight him or he will throw you.” The big man nodded, his dark curls pooling over his shoulders.
Then with a look between their two escorts, he urged Goliath forward with a flick of his wrists on the reins, “Ho, ho.” And Goliath, sensing the urgency of the mission, was off in a flash. Powerful hooves striking the cobbles, shaking the ground, and his lungs moving like the great bellows of the war horns of the Keep. The Cristea all cheered as their Mother thundered past, flanked by two knights of Sparo.
A small paint mustang was led to me, and I looked around from the saddle which felt somehow wrong under my legs. I was so used to the substantial feel of Goliath under me. It felt as though I were mounted on a pony, though all my fellow knights would see this as a proper mount for me instead of my midnight black Percheron. They didn't understand that Goliath and I were a team. He was... mine.
I thought of what was coming, these brave Gypsies could not stand against the technology that Avalon had rolling our way. We needed to slow them down while the rest of Aratreya's villagers could flee past the fields in the north and into the relative safety of forests beyond.
Bex was a little urgent on the radio. “Laney, they are about to crest the hill into the fields.”
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